Android development is a crucial component of any custom mobile or responsive web application project. As of 2020, there were 129 million android phone users in the United States alone.
However, there are a lot of challenges when it comes to Android development, and a lot of common pitfalls that can easily roadblock the project or lead to a less than satisfactory end product.
Below, we’ll talk about some of the most common mistakes made in developing for the Android platform and how to avoid them.
1. Using iOS Design Habits
Android is a completely different operating system than iOS. This is something every developer knows and understands, but it’s all too often that developers mistakenly follow standards that only apply to the Apple operating system.
These mistakes are especially common when an iOS application is being ported over to Android platforms.
Here are the most common errors:
- System notifications shouldn’t be colored in Android apps.
- Don’t use splash screens outside of the initial setup/introduction.
- Don’t place application icons inside a rounded rectangle.
- Don’t put carets in your lists.
- Don’t make static tabs, and definitely don’t put them along the bottom.
2. Not Using Intents
It’s actually pretty common for developers to forget to use intents when developing for Android.
Intents are basically a method for Android apps to pass information between different parts of the applications, and they’re one of Android’s key components.
Not only do they serve to pass information within an application, but they can also pass information between entirely different apps on the device. For instance, a gallery application that can share download links to images via SMS.
Using intents makes your android application better all around.
3. Not Developing for Multiple Devices
One of the things that makes Android so popular as an operating system is that it is used on a wide variety of different phones. Unlike iOS, which can only be used on iPhones, Android can be found on more than 24,000 different devices, including phones, tablets, gaming hardware, etc.
This variety also makes Android development a lot more difficult, because it’s all too easy to have a specific device in mind during development instead of making the application work across a multitude of them.
Here are a couple of things to think about to maintain functionality across devices:
- Different devices use screens with different pixel density and orientations. Compensate for this by using density independent pixels (dp) instead of normal pixels (px).
- Include resources multiple times to account for different densities and orientations.
- 9-patch drawables are stretched to fit the screen size.
4. Not Utilizing Fragments
Fragments are a feature of Android applications that are basically tiny, very complex building blocks inside of an Activity. Their purpose is to basically help with optimization across various screens, and they can be combined, positioned, and reused at will. They’re just all around incredibly helpful.
Neglecting the use of fragments is basically throwing away flexibility for your application, and making the optimization more complicated than it needs to be.
5. Blocking up the Main Thread
The main thread is what keeps the interface of an application snappy and responsive. Blocking it up with unnecessary functions can slow down the app’s performance and lead to a lot of user frustration.
Instead, be sure to use worker and background threads for things like bitmap loading, image processing, database querying, SD reading/writing, and network calls.
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If you’re looking for the best app development team in NYC to handle your Android application development, please contact us today for a free consultation.
